It is always a spectacular highlight of the Six Nations rugby union championship. Tomorrow's England vs Ireland international will also make history as an act of sporting reconciliation. The event is in danger of being overshadowed, however, by a dispute over the playing of God Save the Queen.

For the first time the annual match is being staged at Dublin's Croke Park, the traditional home of gaelic games and the scene of an infamous massacre by British "Black and Tan" forces more than 80 years ago.

The Irish team's home ground, Landsdowne Road in properous south Dublin, is in the process of being demolished to make way for a larger, more modern arena. So this season the game has been transferred to the city's only other major stadium, Croke Park, on the north side, which hosts Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) games.

The GAA was founded in 1884 amid a surge of nationalist fervour aimed at promoting hurling and gaelic football in preference to English or "foreign" games. In 1918, in the run-up to the Irish war of independence, the organisation was even included in a list of organisations banned by the British government.

Until five years ago, members of Northern Ireland's police force and the UK armed forces were barred from participating in GAA matches.

The prospect of an English rugby team being greeted by an Irish army band performing God Save the Queen is still too much for some ardent GAA fans and hardline republicans.

For them, Croke Park is doubly-hallowed ground because of what occurred there on November 21 1920. In what became known as the first Bloody Sunday, a detachment of "Black and Tan" police auxilaries - intent on extracting revenge for IRA attacks - opened fire on the crowds gathered to watch a GAA match.

Fourteen spectators were killed and British control over Ireland was further undermined. Among those who died were Michael Hogan, a Tipperary player. The Hogan stand in Croke Park is named after him.

Earlier this week J J Barrett, the son of a celebrated GAA player who won six all-Ireland final medals, announced he would withdraw his father's medal collection from the museum at Croke Park in protest at the decision to play the British national anthem this weekend.

"I cannot reconcile the provocative words of God Save The Queen being sung in the very stadium where Michael Hogan and others died at the hands of crown forces on Bloody Sunday," he wrote in a published letter.

"The words run contrary to our [GAA] constitution and I believe the GAA should have foreseen this problem when they rented out Croke Park and instead insisted on an England's Call type of musical prelude - the sort we are confined to now when we play away from home.

"If we accept [an] alternative anthem, Ireland's Call, as a mark of reconciliation, then surely the English followers could forego the playing of God Save the Queen as a reciprocal gesture?"

Republican Sinn Féin, a dissident faction opposed to the peace process, is planning a protest near the ground objecting to the playing of the UK's national anthem. The police have stepped up security around the stadium.

Yesterday the Archbishop of Cashel, Dermot Clifford, who is also a patron of the GAA, waded into the controversy by giving his blessing to the singing of God Save The Queen.

"As the Lansdowne Road stadium is being redeveloped, the GAA has allowed the IRFU to stage international rugby matches in Croke Park," he said. "It is logical therefore that the protocols which apply to Landsdowne Road should also apply to Croke Park on Saturday."

The venue is politically sensitive. Earlier this month it was suggested that the Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, might use the occasion to lay a wreath as an act of atonement for the 1920 massacre. Disapproval by unionists and concerns that it would confuse sport with politics to the detriment of both supposedly dissuaded him. Mr Hain later issued a statement declaring: "I have never proposed doing anything other than attend and watch the match at the specific request of the Taoiseach and prime minister."

The issue has sparked a debate among media commentators in Dublin about residual Irish resentment of England. "We are a sovereign nation with average per capita incomes above those of the UK," wrote Fintan O'Toole in the Irish Times. "There are probably no two countries in the world whose governments work more closely together than the Irish and British governments do.

"It is time we got over ourselves. The great thing about the arrival of the English rugby team in Croke Park is that it provides a precise, public, almost ritual occasion when we can ... be confident and at ease in situations where we used to feel Anglophobia."

Another commentator called for the removal of national anthems from sporting occasions on the grounds that they were inherently bombastic and jingoistic. "Otherwise we are liable inadvertently to do more damage to Anglo-Irish relations than Jade Goody has done to Angl-Indian relations," he observed.

The sky-high prices being charged for tickets on eBay demonstrates there is no likelihood of a boycott of the match. A pair of seats was recently offered for €2,400 (£1,600). The stadium's capacity is 82,300.

One letter writer to an Irish paper pointed out that God Save the Queen had already been played at Croke Park in 2003 for the Special Olympics. There was no complaint then.